By Barbaralee Diamonstein; BARBARALEE DIAMONSTEIN, the interviewer-producer of ''American Architecture Now'' and ''Fashion: The Inside Story'' (Arts & Entertainment Network), is writing two books on the subjects, to be published by Rizzoli this fall

It is 6:30, at the dawn of the summer solstice. At Machu Picchu the sun beats back its own shadow, bringing to light the violent red, enduring green and deliquescent gold of the Andean site's long and enigmatic history. Until 1911, when Hiram...

BY BETTY FUSSELL; Betty Fussell is the author of ''I Hear America Cooking'' (Elisabeth Sifton/Viking) and ''Eating In'' (Ecco Press), both to be published in November

Most tourists go to Cuzco to get to Machu Picchu, the great Incan ruin in the Peruvian Andes. But if you want to know more about the past and living present of an empire that once stretched from Ecuador to Argentina, stay in Cuzco long enough to...

Machu Picchu, the mountain-ringed Inca sanctuary the Spanish conquistadors never found and consequently never destroyed, that was ''discovered'' for the outside world in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, archeologist and later United States Senator from...

Seven travelers' tales from all corners of the globe. Adventure is where you find it -- or sometimes where it finds you. And then there was the time I fell off the Inca terrace on the trail to Machu Picchu, proving that even with 30 Quechua Indians...